by Martin Cothran
Someone wrote me recently about being admonished by a friend for recommending that her friend’s daughter read the fantasy books of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. The books contained magic and witchcraft and her friend felt that this would only encourage an interest in such things.
I told her about a man who came up to me at our exhibit booth at a conference and asked me if I knew of any good educational computer programs that taught certain subjects. He clearly thought that education technology was a good thing. Near the end of our discussion, he looked down and saw that we carried The Hobbit. “Oh,” he said, “I would never use that book with Christian students.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because it has magic in it,” he said.
“But you approve of technology?”
“Of course.”
“Well, books like The Hobbit have what I call ‘fairy tale magic’ in them, which is just using some process, the exact nature of which is a mystery to you, to manipulate nature. What’s the difference between magic in this sense and technology?”
Fairy tale magic is the fanciful kind of thing that happens in many fairy tales. When the pumpkin and the rats in Cinderella are turned into a coach and horse, and six lizards into footmen; when the prince kisses Sleeping Beauty and she awakens from her deathly sleep; when Jack plants his magic beans and they grow into a giant bean plant that reaches the clouds; when Rumpelstiltskin spins straw into gold.
It is this kind of “magic” that Chesterton declares–in his great essay, “The Ethics of Elfland”–if imbibed as a child, helps to inoculate us against the scientific materialism of our age because it helps us to see that what lies behind the world is not a “law” (as the scientific materialist would say), but a Will.
Arthur C. Clarke once famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” What he meant was that advanced technology does the very same thing that fairy tale magic does: manipulate nature using a process which you do not understand.
The man I was talking to said something about the fact that even though technology may be a mystery to us, it is not a mystery to scientists who have a natural explanation for it. I responded that that does not change the fact for those of us who are not scientists who use technology: It’s still magic to us.
And besides, even scientific explanations are not explanations, but descriptions―descriptions which themselves appeal to an order which even to scientists is still a mystery. Using an incantation to open a door in a fairy tale is no more magical than using copper to conduct electricity in the real world. And to say that copper conducts electricity because its outer electrons are not localized just begs more questions, since we have only explained one mysterious procedure in terms of another (Why do materials whose electrons are not localized conduct electricity?)
In other words, not only is any advanced technological process magic for us, but ultimately it is magic even to the people to whom we appeal to explain their magic. In the final analysis, it’s even magic to them.
So one way of responding to this objection to fantasy literature is to ask the person if they have a microwave oven in their home or a cell phone in their pocket. If there is a problem with fairy tale magic, then there is a problem with technology. But there is no problem with technology, therefore there is no problem with fairy tale magic (the logical rule of Modus Tollens).
In addition, the kind of “magic” you find in fairy tales―and in fantasy literature like that of Lewis and Tolkien―is not the kind of magic that is prohibited in Scripture. What is prohibited in Scripture is necromancy in particular and fortune-telling in general. It is the consort with specifically demonic forces that is prohibited, as when, at the behest of King Saul, the Witch of Endor calls forth the spirit of Samuel from the dead in the First Book of Samuel.
Again, if you interpret demonic forces too broadly (the occultic), you indict technology. Any definitional net with holes small enough to capture fortune-telling and demonology and large enough to let technology through will also be large enough to allow fairy tale magic through.
Tolkien’s wizard Gandalf does not have dealings with evil spirits, nor does Lewis’ Aslan.
The holes in the net are going to have to be so small as to capture fortune-telling and necromancy, but large enough to let through Joseph’s interpretation of dreams and Daniel’s prophecies. All of which is to say that the problem is not the manipulation of natural things, but the demonic itself. And there is nothing demonic about fairy tale magic of the kind that you find in Lewis and Tolkien. They are simply not calling upon evil spirits to do what they are doing.
And, in fact, it is clear that necromancy is portrayed as evil in The Lord of the Rings, as evidenced by the references to the evil character Sauron as “The Necromancer.” Tolkien certainly seems to recognize this distinction.
The problem is that the people who make this kind of argument want to go way beyond what the Scriptures prohibit. There is a distinction between the use of the word “magic” (in any sense) that is broad enough to encompass fairy tales and fantasy on the one hand, and witchcraft proper on the other.
People who protest Lewis and Tolkien need to have these distinctions pointed out to them.
4 Comments
Lynn · October 18, 2020 at 2:21 am
Absolutely incredible the amount of mental gymnastics people will go through to say magic is ok. Your analogy between magic incantations and technology is so ridiculous. I guess you would be ok with your son or daughter chanting spells and incantations then? The Bible is clear…Magic most certainly is not ok, wizards and sorcerers are not ok, witches are not ok and God never said there was a difference between good and bad magic. It’s all evil. You are allowing your children to be entertained by demons. Where do you draw the line? If this is ok, why not Harry Potter, why not Sabrina the Teenage Witch, why not Dungeons and Dragons. See, they start off indoctrinating children at a young age that magic is ok and normalizing it and they get used to it through fairy tales and Disney movies and then, as they get older they will want to read and watch even darker occult entertainment. For some, the dive goes deeper to practicing witchcraft. But it’s a dangerous path and many are trooping right along and so-called Christians just think this is fine and dandy. Your article did not cite one scripture that said this practice is ok. That’s because it isn’t. But here are the ones that say otherwise:
Genesis 44:5, Psalm 58:5, Nahum 3:4, Isaiah 57:3, Isaiah 8:19, Galatian 5:20, Isaiah 2:6, Deuteronomy 18: 10-11, Leviticus 20:6, Micah 5:12, 2 Kings 21:6, Leviticus 20:27, Exodus 22:18, Revelation 9:21, 18:23 and 22:15.
I will say it again… you are being entertained by demons!
So who are you going to listen to…Satan who has wrapped up his lies and vile practices in sheep’s clothing for your children? Or the God of the Bible?
Martin Cothran · October 19, 2020 at 3:10 pm
Lynn,
Thank you for your response. The Scriptural references you give here all refer to sorcery or witchcraft (or divination)–the practice of harnessing the power of demons for your purposes. But the point of my article is that the so-called “magic” in fairy tales does not do this.
Are you saying that the magic we read of in fairy tales does do what sorcery does? If so, I would be interested in any examples you have from fairy tales. Or are you saying that the Bible prohibits something other than sorcery that would include fairy tale magic? If so, I would be interested in knowing which scriptural passages you think indicate that.
Thank you.
Victoria Whitlock · June 9, 2020 at 8:57 pm
What about some of the Origins of make believe characters that have roots in paganism. Can we get around that? I love fantasy and yet I’m disturbed that fairies are from ancient False Gods in some cultures and that today people believe they are real and even worship them. How do I cope with that? Is it possible to create your own origins for something like faries or elves etc. please respond
Shane Saxon · June 11, 2020 at 8:32 am
Hi Victoria, that is a great question. As Christians, we should be firmly committed to exalting the one true God and opposing all forms of idolatry. That doesn’t mean that Christians can’t or shouldn’t read the fairy tales and the classics. In fact, Martin in an article he wrote in 2012, points out that all throughout history Christians have noticed that pagans had discovered truths “whose Author the pagans themselves did not know.” In the same way, fairy tales and classical mythology—stories that originally came from people who did not know the true God of Israel—teach many profound truths about what it means to be human. As Christians, we know that God has worked to bring these truths to us through broken vessels, and for that, we thank Him.
For more reading on the topic, check out Cheryl Lowe’s “Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics: The Top 10 Reasons.” Thank you for the question.